Israeli Company Sues Apple Over Dual-Lens Cameras In iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus (macrumors.com) 56
Corephotonics, an Israeli maker of dual-lens camera technologies for smartphones, has filed a lawsuit against Apple this week alleging that the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus infringe upon four of its patents. Mac Rumors reports: The patents, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office between November 2013 and June 2016, relate to dual-lens camera technologies appropriate for smartphones, including optical zoom and a mini telephoto lens assembly: U.S. Patent No. 9,402,032; U.S. Patent No. 9,568,712; U.S. Patent No. 9,185,291; U.S. Patent No. 9,538,152. Corephotonics alleges that the two iPhone models copy its patented telephoto lens design, optical zoom method, and a method for intelligently fusing images from the wide-angle and telephoto lenses to improve image quality. iPhone X isn't listed as an infringing product, despite having a dual-lens camera, perhaps because the device launched just four days ago.
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Wait, what are we talking about again?
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No one ever claimed that. It was a design patent, not a utility patent.
So you didn't even read the first claim of the pat (Score:2)
I see you didn't even read the first claim of the patent.
Just first claim requires:
Total track length less than 6.5mm (has anyone else made a 5-element telephoto lens that small? Apple hadn't.)
Focal less |f2|>1.5Ã--f1
That's the first claim. Claims 2-19 get more and more specific.
Slashdot ate half my post (Score:2)
Slashdot ate the second half of the first claim:
in order from an object side to an image side:
a first lens element with a focal length f1 and positive refractive power,
a second lens element with a focal length f2 and negative refractive power and
a third lens element with a focal length f3,
the focal length f1, the focal length f2 and the focal length f3 fulfilling the condition 1.2x|f3|>|f2|>1.5xf1.
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Yeah, because creating a legal precedent absolutely wouldn't be a problem for everyone else's legal defense, especially if they happen to have less resources than Apple (which would be everyone).
Apple: living and dying by the sword (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple just won a stupid, ridiculous patent lawsuit against Samsung.
Now Apple is being sued over a stupid, ridiculous patent.
Patent law is evil. And Apple, which lives by that sword, is now on the other end of the blade.
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Even if Apple didn’t inforce patents it would still get legal suits over patent infringement.
Because they are about 10 million patents and undoubtedly any high tech design would come across them. And unlike trademark laws. You don’t have to inforce a patent claim to prove it is valid so you can hold onto it until someone makes a load of money and then you can get a big chunk of cash from it. Vs stopping it before they make a product and you get little.
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When are you people going to realize the difference between design patents and technical patents?
Too early to say what's what (Score:4, Insightful)
It all depends on how they actually managed to intelligently merge images in the optical assembly. It seems strange though it's not as though nobody else does similar things. It would be like stepping on a GIF patent when there's a perfectly acceptable PNG you could have used to accomplish the same thing.
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It's not even the first digital camera with dual lenses [dpreview.com]
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*lenses
Goose (Score:2, Funny)
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander."
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Yes you can. It's called the home advantage. You can expect their lawyers to say the word "Israeli" very loudly in court.
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Lawyer: An Iceberg sank the Titanic.
Tim Cook: Iceberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?
Re: Goose (Score:1)
Icebergs and the Titanic are both included in "everything."
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It's called the home advantage. You can expect their lawyers to say the word "Israeli" very loudly in court.
That sort of strategy generally doesn't end well [houstonpress.com]. A lot of judges will agree before the trial begins that the parties can't mention irrelevant and potentially prejudicial things like the nationality of the patent owner without first explaining to the judge why it's important to do so in a particular circumstance.
Re: Goose (Score:1)
Banana Republic.
US and China are so similar?
Good artists copy; Great artists steal (Score:2)
Steve Jobs taught Tim Cook well.
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hope he also gave him medical tips
Re: Israeli Patents Should Be Banned (Score:2)
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Wow!
It's not common to see someone openly advocating for collective punishment.
Is there any other group of people you think should be punished for their government's actions?
Shachar
Prior art? (Score:4, Insightful)
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On a first quick read, it appears to be on about combining two separate streams into one, with the cameras looking in different directions (so basically multiplexing), not combining two camera images into a single image.
Me too (Score:2)
I have 2 eyes, I'll sue them as well.